THE DAYS OF SEALING WAX

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 51, 28 August 1926, Page 17

THE DAYS OF SEALING WAX

The woman who wroto letters sixty years ago had to be mistress of certain now vanished manual crafts which her correspondence involved. For many years after the introduction of envelopes with gummed flaps such informal short cuts were eyed askance by wellbred people, and a letter had to be folded and sealed (says the "Daily Telegraph"). "It used to be an object with some ladies, especially young ladies, to fold their notes in such a manner that it was as difficult to tfpen them as Alexander found it to unravel the Gordian knot," recorded a conservative arbiter of fashion. "I will venture to declare that it is no proof of ingenuity or talent to be able to fold & piece of paper in thirty triangle* or to rendor it as difficult to b« opoa*l as a conjurer's box."

Sealing was far from being the slapdash affair it has degenerated into nowadays. A smoky seal without was v serious a disaster as a blotted anjl smudgy page within. Nay, worse, far it meant sitting down to write the letter all over again. Ladies who "fait inclined to produce an extraordinarily fine impression" were counselled to I«y vermilion on.the seal, after the manner of the engravers. Chinese vermilion had to be used—at 28 an ounce—; and a jeweller's polishing brush. Eventually the seal produced, instead of having a gloss all over the surface, aad being of one colour only, presented a work of art, the interior portion «f which, touched by the metal stamp, w«e of rich dead vermilion, while the frame or raised border outside it retained the natural brilliancy, of the wax.

Those were leisurely days. Tb«re was none of our hasty ripping open of envelopes. One first turned to the seal and feasted one's avid aesthetic perceptions upon its beauties of design and craftsmanship. It was incumbent, too, upon every gentlewoman to be able to make and mend pens, equipped with a sharp pen knife, which has survived to our day, and a sheaf of goose qoilfs, which have not.